The Allentown zoning amendment that restricts the number of students living off campus in the neighborhood surrounding Muhlenberg College was scrutinized Wednesday by Pennsylvania's Commonwealth Court.

Attorneys for the college and city took turns giving 15-minute legal summations and answering questions asked by the seven-member panel of Commonwealth Court judges sitting in Philadelphia.

Most Commonwealth Court appeals are heard by three-judge panels. The court reserves seven-member panels for only the most significant cases -- those that may set legal precedent or involve a sensitive ruling in which the court desires to achieve broad judicial consensus.

The court is expected to take several months to review the case and issue a written decision on Muhlenberg's appeal. The Student Residence Overlay District was upheld by Lehigh County Judge Lawrence J. Brenner a year ago.

Muhlenberg has argued that the law is unconstitutional and that it was improperly enacted by Allentown City Council. College counsel Maxwell E. Davison has promised since its 1997 introduction to fight the zoning amendment all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary.

On Wednesday, Davison told the judges that the Student Residence Overlay District is unconstitutional because it discriminates against Muhlenberg students.

"The law would allow three or more druggies, three or more leprosy victims or three or more high school students," to live in the district, said Davison, "but not three Muhlenberg College students."

Davison asked the judges to imagine the reaction if Allentown had tried to regulate the number of Hispanics who wanted to live in the neighborhood.

But Judge Bonnie B. Leadbetter reminded Davison that students are not a protected class as Hispanics are, and President Judge Joseph T. Doyle said government's ability to regulate student housing is an issue that was settled by the courts long ago.

"We have to start with the premise that the city may regulate the activities of students," said Doyle.

Davison also argued that the zoning measure should be overturned because Allentown failed to follow proper procedures before City Council voted the Overlay District into law on Oct. 15, 1997.

Assistant city solicitor Francis P. Burianek did not dispute that council's approval of Bill 74 establishing the Overlay District gave short shrift to the 30-day rule. But he argued that Bill 59, an earlier version of the law almost identical to the measure that passed, was in the hands of the Planning Commission well before the deadline to meet the 30-day requirement.

"Bill 59 had a long history," Burianek told the court. "It went before the Allentown Planning Commission and the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission. Bill 74 is a clone of Bill 59."

Allentown enacted the Student Residence Overlay District after years of complaints from neighbors about the hundreds of students who moved off campus into single-family homes east of the college.

Under the law, up to four students may reside together inside the district only in detached dwellings already divided into more than one apartment; no more than two students may reside together in single-family homes.

The district is bordered on the north by Tilghman street, on the south by the campus or Parkway Boulevard, on the west by 27th Street and on the east by 19th or Lafayette streets.